Home ownership unaffordable - Cable

Home ownership is becoming "unaffordable" for middle income families, Business Secretary Vince Cable has warned, amid fears rising prices are stoking a new property market bubble.

In an interview with The Independent, the Liberal Democrat Cabinet minister said there were still not enough homes being built to satisfy the demand of people wanting to buy a place of their own.

"The fundamental problem is a chronic imbalance between supply and demand. A recovering mortgage market is just fuelling demand again," he said.

"A family on average income is nowhere near able to afford a house at the average price. Property has become much more unaffordable for people on middle incomes."

His intervention comes after a survey by the Nationwide Building Society found that the "house price gap" between London and the rest of the country was at its widest since records began in the 1970s.

Mr Cable hit back at the Conservative housing minister Kris Hopkins who suggested that rising house prices were a good thing.

"I do not agree with Kris Hopkins that rising house prices are a good thing," he said.

"If you are an owner-occupier who has paid off your mortgage, it is an increase in your paper or real wealth. But if you are a young family trying to get into the housing market and it is unaffordable, it is an extremely bad thing."

His comments will irritate the Conservatives. Chancellor George Osborne has previously rejected warnings by Mr Cable that the Government 's Help to Buy scheme - which provides 95% mortgage guarantees - is driving up prices.

Mr Osborne argues that the measure is helping families to get a first foot on the housing ladder, but Mr Cable said that the only answer was to build more homes.

"We have taken some very good measures in government like allowing those areas with severe need for additional housing to increase borrowing against their assets to build new houses. But more needs to be done," he said.

"We must build many more houses - that and only that is the solution to our housing problem."

Comments

"Property has become much more unaffordable for people on middle incomes."

So what about people on working class incomes, Mr Cable? Did we ever figure at all in your equations, or is it just that we have been so repeatedly downtrodden underfoot for so long now that we have simply ceased to be of even the slightest of significance anymore?

Small wonder that monumental swathes of the great British working class are now looking outside of the main LibLabCon political parties for representation when mainstream politicians only ever seem to be interested in the middle class and upwards.

"Property has become much more unaffordable for people on middle incomes."
So what about people on working class incomes, Mr Cable? Did we ever figure at all in your equations, or is it just that we have been so repeatedly downtrodden underfoot for so long now that we have simply ceased to be of even the slightest of significance anymore?
Small wonder that monumental swathes of the great British working class are now looking outside of the main LibLabCon political parties for representation when mainstream politicians only ever seem to be interested in the middle class and upwards.Katie Re-Registered

"Property has become much more unaffordable for people on middle incomes."

So what about people on working class incomes, Mr Cable? Did we ever figure at all in your equations, or is it just that we have been so repeatedly downtrodden underfoot for so long now that we have simply ceased to be of even the slightest of significance anymore?

Small wonder that monumental swathes of the great British working class are now looking outside of the main LibLabCon political parties for representation when mainstream politicians only ever seem to be interested in the middle class and upwards.

Score: 1

varteg1
5:52pm Fri 4 Apr 14

As it is often stated that it is the 'middle class' that supports the right wing, unless the 'left' does something to satisfy it, then, as it is almost certain the right wing governments, (I said it in plural deliberately) are responsible for creating the problems in housing etc, then all one can say is serves the middle class right for being the greedy barstewards they have been for the last thirty years.

Unless a future government places an embargo coupled to a strict sales tax on house sales, and also stamps down hard on buy to rent then I see no chance things will alter.

A house should not be a cash cow. Nor a means to make a quick few grand out of the need by someone else to get a place to live.

I know of quite a few who have made a very large sum out of buying cheap and selling dear, and I have no hesitation in castigating the TV programmes that have helped drive up house prices by following well heeled so called 'developers' into auction rooms watching as they buy a house then do it up, often stating they have made maybe a third more or even a half what they paid for the place after their works are completed.

Stuff the middle class, whatever is impacting one them today is well deserved, I hope they get yet more problems in the years to come, before the housing market bottoms out.

As it is often stated that it is the 'middle class' that supports the right wing, unless the 'left' does something to satisfy it, then, as it is almost certain the right wing governments, (I said it in plural deliberately) are responsible for creating the problems in housing etc, then all one can say is serves the middle class right for being the greedy barstewards they have been for the last thirty years.
Unless a future government places an embargo coupled to a strict sales tax on house sales, and also stamps down hard on buy to rent then I see no chance things will alter.
A house should not be a cash cow. Nor a means to make a quick few grand out of the need by someone else to get a place to live.
I know of quite a few who have made a very large sum out of buying cheap and selling dear, and I have no hesitation in castigating the TV programmes that have helped drive up house prices by following well heeled so called 'developers' into auction rooms watching as they buy a house then do it up, often stating they have made maybe a third more or even a half what they paid for the place after their works are completed.
Stuff the middle class, whatever is impacting one them today is well deserved, I hope they get yet more problems in the years to come, before the housing market bottoms out.varteg1

As it is often stated that it is the 'middle class' that supports the right wing, unless the 'left' does something to satisfy it, then, as it is almost certain the right wing governments, (I said it in plural deliberately) are responsible for creating the problems in housing etc, then all one can say is serves the middle class right for being the greedy barstewards they have been for the last thirty years.

Unless a future government places an embargo coupled to a strict sales tax on house sales, and also stamps down hard on buy to rent then I see no chance things will alter.

A house should not be a cash cow. Nor a means to make a quick few grand out of the need by someone else to get a place to live.

I know of quite a few who have made a very large sum out of buying cheap and selling dear, and I have no hesitation in castigating the TV programmes that have helped drive up house prices by following well heeled so called 'developers' into auction rooms watching as they buy a house then do it up, often stating they have made maybe a third more or even a half what they paid for the place after their works are completed.

Stuff the middle class, whatever is impacting one them today is well deserved, I hope they get yet more problems in the years to come, before the housing market bottoms out.

Score: 1

ConcernedOssy
9:56pm Mon 7 Apr 14

Why do we have to tolerate these plonkers like cable who also we'll past his sell by date

Why do we have to tolerate these plonkers like cable who also we'll past his sell by dateConcernedOssy

Why do we have to tolerate these plonkers like cable who also we'll past his sell by date

Ipsoregulated

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